#010, first cup coffee, 230110

company: L
conversation: Guys, museums, Autumn's Concerto (Taiwanese Drama), giving up and getting lost.

**I would just like to point out that the interior of the 'cafe' was so dark that all my pictures ended up really fuzzy and dark. My apologies.**

Let's just say that if I were Christopher Columbus on a voyage to discover America... I probably wouldn't find it. Maybe it was a combination of tiredness, not reading the address right and even Open Rice giving me the wrong address; we walked an entire circle around buildings and crossing roads only to find ourselves back at square one when the coffee shop was hidden away on the next street the whole time.

L was the first to see the sign, whereas I just walked right past the store. In retrospect, I would have continued walking if she hadn't stopped me. It was so dark that it verged on the creepy side of things. But an explorer does not give up even if the place looks dodge, so I went in and accidentally thought a regular guest was the waiter... My bad. After being handed the menu, we decided the prices were fair enough (L's treat!) and then came the dilemma of sitting near the entrance where there were many smokers or sit near a suspiciously potential drug deal in the corner. Hmm...

The furniture was mis-matched and some of them were poorly kept. If the place hadn't been so sketchy, I think I would have appreciated it more. The bar looked readily stocked and everyone was ordering coffees so that must have been some indication towards the quality.

Whilst the menu was approximately 10 pages long, I realised they had made the "Hot Drinks" and "Cold Drinks" separate when they were essentially the same beverages. Although I did see something else that I had not noticed in other coffee shops: coffee drinks with alcohol. I only skimmed this section but an example was a latte with Baileys (an Irish cream based liqueur, yum). Whilst this raised the price quite a bit, this is an excellent combination. I can only imagine the creaminess of the Baileys working with the latte to create an extra layer of sweetness.

Breakfast food items as well as wraps and sandwiches were also available, we saw one of the employees make a wrap which smelt quite good.

I had a cappuccino, small, HKD$28. She had a mocha, small, HKD$32.

The drinks came relatively fast and they were hot. The barista understood what she was doing but the frothing of the milk was quite noisy and this was evident in the quality of the foam on my cappuccino.

Although it might not be obvious in the photo, but as I was taking photos, more and more bubbles appeared. This made me remember my cups of coffee (the few that I made) which had visible air bubbles and craters because I did not froth the milk enough. This does not take away from the taste of the cappuccino but nice froth makes the cappuccino more visually appealling. Usually I can just sprinkle lots and lots of chocolate powder on top to hide the imperfections.

With the first sip of the cappuccino, I noticed it was very strong. Like, very strong. It reminded me of S Square Cafe's espresso punch, but this was not sour. The great thing I realised about this coffee was that there was no aftertaste. Even as we left the cafe, I asked L if she had any sourness in her mouth, we both marvelled at the fact that whilst we could still slightly taste the espresso, it was a nice aftertaste and not something you needed to cover up with gum.

A mocha is basically a variation of a latte, except with a teaspoon of chocolate powder dissolved inside. Thus making it less bitter and strong. L's mocha was visually appealling and what surprised me was that when I tasted it, I could actually tell the difference between the espresso and chocolate! Although I did not regularly drink mochas before, when I did, I thought the espresso was so powerful that I could not taste any chocolate whatsoever.

In comparison to the cappuccino, the mocha was much sweeter (although my sweet tooth wasn't complaining) but still had a good balance with the coffee.

First Cup Coffee, the name, makes me think of ones first ever cup of coffee. Honestly, I don't remember mine, but I don't think it was anything special. I think this store was more of a bar than a coffee shop which disappointed me. If I was walking by, I might even cross the street because I felt intimidated to go in.

The wide entrance allows smokers to sit and smoke but causes the smoke to drift into the shop. The barista ended up sitting down at the bar and lighting up, so I would definitely not recommend this place to any non-smokers. It was unpleasant and I ended up smelling like smoke myself. With the wide entrance, the cold wind could easily come in, making our coffees lukewarm about halfway through. I understand that coffee starts getting cold the second you drink it but the lack of heating did not help.

Despite boasting coffee in their name, the interior definitely says otherwise. It is not some place I would return to even though the graffiti seemed cool and the coffee was not half-bad. It obviously means something when L and I were discussing further plans to eat at a restaurant nearby and then re-visit Crema instead.

address: G/F, Chevalier Bldg. Chatham Road South, Tsim Sha Tsui (look for Prat Avenue).
尖沙咀漆咸道南45-51號其士大廈地下C及D舖
phone: 2316-7793